NBC's Lauer: WikiLeaks is Merely a 'Messenger' for Classified Material

On
Monday's Today show, NBC's Matt Lauer downplayed the criminal factor in
the release of hundreds of thousands of classified diplomatic
communiques by WikiLeaks, twice labeling the website as only a "messenger"
for the documents. Both Lauer and NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell
insisted the State Department "crossed a line" by ordering diplomats to
spy on foreign diplomats at the United Nations.

The NBC anchor interviewed Republican Congressman Peter King seven
minutes into the 7 am Eastern hour on this latest release of
confidential documents by WikiLeaks. Midway through the segment, Lauer
raised the espionage issue: "Were you surprised to hear that Secretary
of State Clinton and her predecessor, Secretary of State Rice, asked
their diplomats to, in effect, spy on diplomats at the United Nations,
asking for things like credit card numbers, computer passwords, DNA,
fingerprints? This does cross a line, doesn't it?"

Mitchell used a similar line in the preceding segment:

MITCHELL: There is already fallout at the United Nations and in foreign
capitals about the disclosure...that Secretary of State Clinton, and
Condoleezza Rice before her, ordered her diplomats to spy on foreign
capitals. That crosses a line between diplomacy and espionage, and that could endanger U.S. diplomats who rely on legal immunity, especially in dangerous parts of the world.

When Rep. King denied that it had crossed a line, the anchor replied,
"Why doesn't it cross a line?" The New York Republican correctly pointed
out in his answer that "we're doing nothing that every other government
doesn't also do to us. It's just not put in the public eye."

Lauer then raised King's call for tough action against WikiLeaks and used his "messenger" label for the website:

LAUER: You want dramatic action taken. You
would like to see WikiLeaks, the organization that has, really, served
as the messenger for these leaked documents, to be declared a FTO or a
foreign terrorist organization. That would put them in the same category as al Qaeda basically.

KING: Right.

LAUER: What is the likelihood of that happening?

KING: I would- I was disappointed with what [NBC correspondent] Jim
Miklaszewski said [in an earlier report], that it doesn't appear the
government is going to be taking tough legal action. If American lives
are at risk- and every top military official has said that- then we have
to be serious. We should go after them for violating the Espionage Act,
and the reason I say 'foreign terrorist organization' is because
they're engaged in terrorist activity. Their activity is enabling
terrorists kill Americans-

LAUER: But aren't they the messenger? I mean, don't you want to
take that action against whoever it was who downloaded these documents
and gave them to Wikileaks?

KING: Well, it's both, because he was apparently a PFC [private first
class], a low-ranking PFC who should get the most severe sentence. But
you're an accessory (unintelligible)- Wikileaks is an accessory to this.
They are taking information which they know is classified, which they
know can cost life- they are as guilty as he is.

KING: Absolute nonsense- nobody elected Wikileaks to do anything. The
fact is the government cannot sign a suicide pact. A government has to
protect itself. It has to maintain secrets. We owe it to ourselves. We
owe it to our allies. We owe it to the lives of the men and women who
are out on the frontlines fighting for us.

Representative
King is correct. The documents that Assange and Wikileaks released
earlier in 2010 contained the names and locations of Afghan informants
who assisted NATO troops, making them easy targets for retribution by
the Taliban. The Australian hacker brushed aside any concerns for their lives: "While acknowledging that leaks like these could harm innocent people, he rationalized such possibilities as mere 'collateral damage, if you will.'" Toby Harnden of The Daily Telegraph, in addition to pointing out this endangering of the Afghanis, also noted how the WikiLeaks founder "admitted that he was seeking to manipulate and create 'maximum political impact'"
with his release of a video which contained edited gun camera footage
of a U.S. helicopter attack in Iraq where employees of Reuters were
mistakenly killed.

Just over three months earlier, on August 23, Lauer advanced Assange's charge
that the rape allegation against him was a Defense Department smear:
"And payback? The founder of WikiLeaks, the Web site that leaked
classified war documents, briefly named in a rape case in Sweden. He
says he's innocent. Those charges have been dropped and now he suggests
it's all part of a Pentagon smear campaign today."

- Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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